Male traits, mating tactics and reproductive success in the buff-breasted sandpiper, Tryngites subruficollis

Buff-breasted sandpipers use a variety of mating tactics to acquire mates, including remaining at a singlelek for most of the breeding season, attending multiple leks during the season, displaying solitarily ordisplaying both on leks and solitarily. We found that differences in body size, body condition, fluctuatingasymmetry scores, wing coloration, territory location and behaviour (attraction, solicitation andagonistic) did not explain the observed variation in mating tactics used by males. Which malesabandoned versus returned to leks was also not related to morphology or behaviour, and there was notendency for males to join leks that were larger or smaller than the lek they abandoned. These resultssuggest that male desertion of leks was not dependent on a male’s characteristics nor on the size of thelek he was presently attending. Males did join leks with larger males than their previous lek, perhaps tomate with females attracted to these larger